Not A Single Soul Around || Clowder prompt

A younger Porchlight felt the familiar, sickly cold wash over their pelt. It wormed beneath their skin and left them near shivering as black enveloped their vision. She never enjoyed the Shaded realm; the shadows here cast heavy but without light source. A perpetual gloom that sunk heavily in the air, almost like a stormcloud swollen with an oncoming torrent; it felt thick, similarly to mud. It clung to her pelt like oil and pressed on her eyes, throat, and chest.

It felt heavier these days, much heavier. These nights as she slept, worried to exhaustion of her clowder’s fight with the famished winter. Some evenings she could not tell between the thickened air of malice in this damned place, and her own guilt and fear weighing on her mortal heart. It weighed the same on her chest. 

Her worries lead her to this place more nights than not, now. As some semblance of feeling returns to her paws and whiskers, she gains a grasp of her tucked laying form and surveys the shadowed surroundings. Alone so far as she can tell, the environment has the basic elements of her den and camp beyond, but subtle inaccuracies flare unease in her mind. A dripping hole in her den is absent, her nest lacking the comforting form of her mate. Focusing on any one detail quickly leaves her head feeling strained and the scenes begin to swirl and spill together, like oily puddles on pavement. 

She rises to her paws and stretches. I feel slightly at peace here, in an odd way. My belly does not claw with hunger in this world. She looks back once more to her now-empty nest, noting her mate’s absence. Does she stumble here in dreams also? Or is this place mine alone?

Maybe it is a blessing to be alone.

She pads from the shadowy den to the copied version of her clearing. No pawprints dot the dirt, and the usual feel of pebbles digging into her pads is muffled and distant, as if layered by thick cloth. No matter, for her claws are still able to make small marks in the dirt. If her mind keeps leading her to this lonesome place, she’ll take the opportunity to strategize without the threat of prying eyes. 

At least, that is what she believes as she begins to scratch shapes and formations into the dirt with a focused gaze.